It's no surprise there's tons of buzz surrounding the September 5th launch of Garage magazine. How does one not write about a Dasha Zhukova project that features Damien Hirst's art on a young model's vagina -- tattooed by Mo Coppoletta, no less?

Timed perfectly for NY Fashion Week, The NY Times describes the debut issue as "one of the most intriguing
magazines to come along in years, it is not entirely clear whether this
is a fashion magazine that takes more than a passing interest in art, or
an art magazine that knows its stuff about fashion."

The magazine seems to know its stuff about tattoos as well, commissioning renowned tattooists Mike Rubendall in New York and Lindsey Carmichael in California to work with Coppoletta in London on the "Inked" spread of black and white portraits (photographed by Hedi Slimane) featuring "willing canvases" and their new tattoo work.

Such work includes Rubendall's execution of Jeff Koons art (shown below) and Carmichael's lettering of John Baldessari's "I will not wear any more boring tattoos." Coppoletta also tattooed a Dinos Chapman design on Dinos himself: a pointed hand etching with the words "I'm with this idiot" underneath. [The high art ironic tattoo will no doubt be big in Brooklyn in about five seconds.]

The genital ink, however, has kept Coppoletta most busy with the press. Even the New York Post hit him up for details in an article that also quotes the proud owner of the tattoo saying:

I would have been stupid not to be part of this project. I have a piece
of art on my vagina. Not one single person can ever say they gave birth
through a Damien Hirst piece of art. I can [if I ever give birth].

The article further states that she threw a garden party in honor of her new vagina.

I too contacted Coppoletta for more info, and here's what he said:

The magazine informed me that Damien had handpicked me for this project and I agreed to take it on. I was curious about the design to be submitted, and on receiving it, we began to bounce the design backward and forwards until the final draft was agreed.

The butterfly needed to be adapted to the physicality of the area. The final tattoo was very close to the original design, but I needed to modify a few elements for it to be more tattooable.

When asked about the challenges of tattooing genitals, he said that there were no special techniques he used on that type of skin, and that the difficulty really lies in reach and body positioning.

On one of the Garage magazine covers, the actual tattoo is obscured with a peel-away butterfly sticker, a nod to the Warhol banana sticker on The Velvet Underground & Nico album. Nevertheless, it's already being banned by WHSmith booksellers. The two other covers are a sketch of Richard Prince's smiling tattoo design, and a Nick Knight photo of Dinos Chapman's dollhouse complete with Lily Donaldson puppet. See them on High Snobiety.

Looking forward to getting my hands on all three next week. Garden party to follow.